William McKinley - Assassination

"Your
duty
to the country is to
live
for
four
years from next March," Hanna had written McKinley following the
Republican nomination. After his second inauguration, the president
decided to go on an extensive tour of the western states, capping it with
a visit to San Francisco. To him the journey seemed an appropriate
gesture. It would offer abundant opportunities to demonstrate confidence
in the future of American leadership among nations of the world. The
journey fulfilled McKinley's hopes. Although his wife fell
seriously ill in San Francisco, she recovered miraculously, and all along
the way cheering crowds greeted the presidential entourage. Resting at
home in Canton after his return, McKinley finished preparation of an
address he had agreed to deliver at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo
on 5 September.

The fair was dedicated to peace and amity in the western hemisphere, and a
festive spirit prevailed at the exposition when the McKinleys arrived to
celebrate President's Day. Their host was John G. Mil-burn, a
leading member of the Buffalo bar. More than 116,000 people had come to
greet them, and nearly half that number gathered in the Esplanade to hear
what McKinley had to say. His remarks were appropriate to the occasion.
Urging an enlightened policy of commercial reciprocity, he argued that the
United States could not forever sell the products of American industry
abroad without also buying the products of other countries. "The
period of exclusiveness is past," cautioned the man who had once
been the foremost spokesman of protective tariffs. Capable of adjusting to
changing times, he now conceded that "the expansion of our trade
and commerce is the pressing problem." Yet he also argued that such
expansion must take place under conditions of world peace.
"Commercial wars," he warned, "are
unprofitable."

It was McKinley's last public utterance. The following day he
toured Niagara Falls before returning to the Temple of Music to greet
thousands of sight-seers and well-wishers. Inconspicuous in the crowd was
Leon Czolgosz, who carried in his pocket a.32-caliber Iver-Johnson
revolver. Brooding over social injustice, he had been attracted to
anarchism, and he had come to kill the president. The day was hot, and
handkerchiefs were much in evidence as people mopped the perspiration from
their brows. While Czolgosz waited, he surreptitiously wrapped the
revolver in his handkerchief. The long line lurched forward as McKinley
shook each hand with practiced efficiency. When the assassin reached the
head of the line, he fired two shots. The president fell, grasping at his
chest and abdomen.

Within minutes McKinley was taken to the emergency hospital on the grounds
of the exposition. The physicians who clustered about the operating table
saw instantly that the abdominal wound was very serious indeed. Patching
it up as best they could under the circumstances, they removed McKinley to
the Milburn house, where he had been staying since his arrival in Buffalo.
For a week the president seemed to be doing well, and hopes for his
recovery ran high; but gangrene gradually spread along the track of the
bullet, and by the afternoon of 13 September the attending physicians had
abandoned hope.

"Good-bye, good-bye all," murmured the dying man to a small
group of friends who had gathered in the room. With his invalid wife at
his bedside, he whispered the words of a familiar hymn, "Nearer, My
God to Thee." He died shortly after two o'clock the next
morning. William McKinley, whose political popularity betokened the skills
of a sensitive and experienced political craftsman, was in his personal
life a simple man who reiterated platitudes without embarrassment. He had
lived with dignity, and with dignity he died.